


ocean breathing heavy

by attheborder



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Seasickness, Sickfic, crushing on a landsman oh what's a sailor boy to do, terrible flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: Billy helps Mr. Hickey find his sea legs.fill for my Terror Bingo square: "The Polar Sea"
Relationships: William Gibson/Cornelius Hickey
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2020)





	ocean breathing heavy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



“He’ll turn himself inside out, if he doesn’t give that a rest,” says Mr. Jopson, shaking his head.

“Feeding our good rations straight to the fishes,” Mr. Armitage says. “Should he have it taken from his wages, d’you think? Someone should tell the clerk...”

“You leave him alone,” says Billy, in a voice much louder than he’d meant. Armitage raises an eyebrow, and shoots a look at Jopson, who just shakes his head and returns to his washing. 

From his station near the foremast, where the stewards have set up the wash-tubs and the lines, Billy sees Mr. Hickey’s distress subside momentarily, long enough to give him the confidence to shakily head forwards towards his caulking tools, lying abandoned a few feet away. But then another roll of the ship—gentle as anything, really—sends him staggering back to the starboard gunwale, where he leans over and vomits again into the foaming blue swells of the polar sea. When he stands up straight he is even paler than before, wiping his mouth with the back of a trembling hand.

There had been a handful of first-entry men on Terror, many of whom had suffered greatly in the rough waters as _Rattler_ towed them north, but Mr. Hickey is the last one to remain without sea legs this long after weighing anchor. If anything, his sickness has increased in severity since they left the safety of Stromness harbor and sailed into the brutish North Atlantic. 

Billy has seen it before, of course; and from elder cooks and stewards he’s heard that the hosts of reluctant landsmen pressed during wartime could take months to acclimate. Not because of any defect of their inland breeding, but merely from stubbornness—from refusing to accept the deck beneath their feet; for wishing, stupidly and desperately, that the ship would turn around and cough them back up on steady shores. Any sailor could tell Mr. Hickey that his belly won’t settle till he’s come to terms with his situation. 

This recalcitrance is odd to see from someone who joined up willingly, and to such a prestigious expedition—God knows Billy is lucky to be here, sending double-pay home instead of languishing in London.

He stands and clips the last of Lieutenant Irving's shirts to the line, before heaving up the heavy tub of dirty, blue-tinged wash-water, and carrying it aft. 

“Get him to the sick bay,” calls Mr. Jopson after him. “The Captain will be up soon.” _Oh, naturally,_ thinks Billy uncharitably, _wouldn’t want anyone to forget that you know where the Captain will be at any hour._

Billy’s balance is practiced and easy, dodging the ABs and Marines dotting the deck on the way to Mr. Hickey’s unfortunate station. Once he reaches the gunwale he casually tips the tub over into the ocean, before turning to the ailing caulker and clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re making a fool of yourself, Mr. Hickey,” he says in a low voice. “Let me take you down to see the surgeon.” 

Hickey tries to push him away, but his limbs are so weak that it comes off as a childish shove. “Oh, mind your own, I’m fine—” 

“You’re not,” Billy hisses, pitiless, and Hickey stills, thin mouth set in a stubborn moue that would be far more intimidating were it not for the speckled remnants of vomit in his whiskers. His light eyes dart round the deck to the men, who are paying them no mind; the master’s call to close-reef topsails against the increasing westerly gale have sent them scurrying up the rigging, a flurry of activity sentimentally familiar to Billy, though he would take the soap-crusted hands and lamp-oil stains of his steward’s duties over the tar and calluses of an O.S.’s life anyday. 

“Leave me be,” Hickey says, giving his head a proud shake, well at odds with his sickly countenance. 

“I’ll take you below,” Billy insists. “You’re no use to anyone like this.” 

“Well, I can get there on my own,” Hickey says, attempting again to throw Billy off, but Billy’s hands are gripped tight around Hickey’s thin arm.

“Can you, now?” He bends to speak low in Hickey’s ear. He hadn’t realized how small the man was. “Or will you stumble and faint, and wake up with a split head? Everyone already assumes you’re a drunk, you know.” A lie, but not an unrealistic one: it would be easy enough to make such a rumor spread. Hickey gives him a bleary, blameful glare. “Fine. Not the surgeon, then. Come rest in my cabin—I’ll fetch something for you that might help.”

“But—” Hickey says, and points skeptically at his mouth. In answer, Billy raises up the now-empty wash-tub. 

Thus assured, Hickey allows himself to be wrangled down the hatchway and onto the lower deck; with a hand on the small of his back Billy guides Hickey to his own precious, private curtained berth.

“To hell with this,” grouses Hickey, his hand to his head, “I can’t stand it any longer.” 

“The cure for sea-sickness is to sit in the lee of an old brick church in the country,” Billy says, reciting the old sailor’s proverb.

Hickey’s fair brows draw together skeptically. “Really?” 

“Lord, you really are a lubber.” He sighs. “Wait here.” 

“Gibson—!” Hickey calls, frustratedly, but Billy has already slipped past his cabin’s curtain and is heading down the passageway towards the pantry. 

When he returns, Hickey has sat down on the cot, and is leaning back against the bulkhead, staring up into the shaft of daylight pouring down through the illuminator. He’s quite pretty like this, Billy must admit. Eyes watery and red-rimmed, his pale throat working, hands spread over his stomach and clutching at the fabric there as he winces—suffering turning him saintly and pure. 

The sight is ruined soon enough by another harsh roll of _Terror_ in the swell; Hickey lets out a disgusting noise, pitches forward, and retches into the tub; nothing much coming out but bile and spit, now. “Christ, it never fucking ends,” he groans. 

“It will end,” says Billy, and then, “it will.” He offers out a handful of spiced pine-nuts; a remedy he knew of from his time on the _Wanderer._ “Eat these, they’ll help.” 

“Where’d they come from?”

“Lieutenant Hodgson’s private stores,” Billy says. “Oh, he won’t miss them. The man brought more on board than the Captain, nearly. Wine and cakes like he’s planning to open a shop, up there in the ice. Go on, then, and lie back.” 

While Hickey eases himself against the bulkhead, chewing gingerly at the nuts, Billy turns to his basin and fetches up a cloth. He wets it and, without preamble, begins to wipe away the mess at Hickey’s mouth and chin. 

“This isn’t your job,” Hickey says, suspiciously. As if Billy might, all of a sudden, turn and demand payment for the remedy, or for the attention. 

“No, it isn’t,” agrees Billy, and carries on. After a little while Hickey pushes him away, but only to hang his head over the tub again; from this vantage Billy can see how the hair falls away from his neck, the soft cascade of ginger strands revealing a delicate white nape.

“McDonald’s not all that bad, as Navy surgeons go,” Billy says, when Hickey sits back up. “He’ll have something for you. A draught or a bolus… There’s really no need to be so stubborn.” 

Hickey grimaces. “Got on perfectly well without doctors all my days. Why should that change now that I’m at sea?”

“Because if it gets any worse—Christ, haven’t your messmates warned you?” 

“Warned me?” Hickey repeats. “Of what?” 

Billy leans in close. “The final stages of sea sickness. Soon your prick will swell, then it’ll turn black and go dry, before it falls off…” 

For a moment he thinks he’s gone too far—that Hickey might well believe him—then Hickey smiles, not the coy smirk Billy has spotted out of the corner of his eye in the galley, but a real grin, revealing charmingly oversized teeth. “Well, we wouldn’t want that,” he says. The smile lasts for a good long while, until he winces, another wave of sickness overtaking him. 

“I know what happened,” says Billy. “Why you’ve come over this way.” 

“Do you now,” Hickey says, his eyes squeezed tightly closed. 

“It’s clear enough,” Billy says. “Work at the docks dried up—perhaps you were sacked, or quit in a huff. Arguing with the boss like you argue with Darlington. You thought you’d take your chances with the Navy—how different could it be, after all, from caulking at the quayside? But you didn’t count on the open sea… Now every night you fancy yourself back in Spitalfields with cobblestones beneath your boots again. Must’ve been a sudden departure. Have I got the right of it?” 

Hickey opens his eyes, blinks up at Billy and gives a shrug; Billy takes that as a tacit admission of his own accuracy. 

“Then you’ll trust me when I say that if you want this to clear up, you’ll put London out of your mind.” 

“It’s out,” says Hickey, scowling. “It’s long gone, believe me.”

“Is it? I don’t think so. Else you’d not be staggering around like this still.” 

Hickey folds his arms, looking petulantly down at his shoes. Billy has the sense he’d like to get up and walk away, now, except he’s worried he might stumble.

“He’ll send you home,” Billy says, softer. “Captain Crozier. Don’t think he won’t. If that’s what you want, well, just wait until we reach Disko Bay, and you’ll be loaded onto the _Barretto._ Just yesterday, I overheard Lieutenant Little telling Mr. Hornby that’s what they plan to do with the armourer.” 

The prospect seems to send a panic through Hickey. Billy can too easily imagine his fear at the thought of losing out on so many months’ wages. Perhaps, like Billy, Hickey has younger siblings at home; or an aging father, a crippled mother. Whatever the case, Billy is satisfied that the threat is enough to strike discipline into Hickey’s heart; the kind he’ll need if he’s to recover. 

Billy spreads his hand carefully and gently across the slender curve of Hickey’s back, conscious of the delicate balance of the moment, but easy in his confidence that he’s navigated correctly. “It’s a bad situation,” he says, “for your first voyage, but you’ve got to make the best of it. We all have.” 

Hickey nods. The spiced nuts seem to have soothed him; some color is returning to his face. Not to mention the gale has steadied now, the ship’s run through the water leveling out as the bowlines draw tight up on deck. “Thank you. You’re very wise, Mr. Gibson.” 

“Billy,” he says, “call me Billy.” 

“Cornelius.” _What a name,_ Billy thinks, but not without a stirring of fondness; a green shoot in the ground. 

Hickey is giving him an appraising look now, and Billy resists the urge to preen, to pose; either they are of a kind or they are not, there’s no use for vanity, not in such close quarters. They can see each other perfectly well, in the white light from above. 

Anyway, it isn’t as if he’s asking for anything—not right now, at least. The debt can be repaid later, in any way Hickey sees fit. 

As Hickey climbs shakily to his feet, readjusting his jacket and neckerchief, Billy wonders what manner of man will be unleashed, once the sickness fully subsides and Hickey begins to stride the weather deck with the confidence of a man born to it. He has the sense it is the sort of man he’ll like very much.

They’ve a long, cold winter ahead of them, and Mr. Hickey might be good company—so long as he can keep his supper down. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> billy, 3 years later, as he is stabbed: i guess i should've fucking let him get sent home, huh
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com) and [twitter!](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe)


End file.
